Reference no: EM131221894

A long trip, indeed!!!

It was a warm morning in Washington DC and the last day for the Production and Operations Management (POMS) conference. I was anxious to get back home. After shaking a few hands with people I met in the conference, I finally checked out at 11am from the conference hotel en route to the Reagan airport to reach well before my flight scheduled at 2pm. The airline company A is known to provide a good customer service with their huge networks of flights in the United States. Everything looked fine until I embarked on my journey.

The ground staff was very efficient; they got us loaded in the flight based on our zone numbers. This concept of zone has been initiated so that line movement is fast and people ahead of you do not block the way. In the past, airlines did this with seat numbers, however to standardize the services, zone numbers were introduced so that the ground staff does not need to know the size of the plane or the number of seats there. An operations management innovation indeed!!!

Having boarded the flight, we were all set for departure when we heard an announcement from the captain that they were waiting for some paperwork. On the way in, this flight had some issues with navigation lights that were fixed, however they needed paperwork as per protocol. This paperwork would take 10 minutes as mentioned in the announcement. I had a tight connection in New York LaGuardia, however I was assured that this delay could be easily made up. The flight got the push back after 15 minutes. In the DC runway, I could see a lot of flights ready to take off. Anxiously, I waited for our turn to go up to the northern skies. However, this anxiety turned in restlessness when 20 minutes elapsed in this state. Surely this was not normal. Before anybody could ask what was happening, we heard the captain once again. He told us about a congestion situation in LaGuardia and we did not receive clearance to fly from here. I was surprised that airlines did not seek to receive such permissions before boarding the flight. Tired with the action oriented days in the conference, I decided to snooze for a bit.

I woke up in 20 minutes with an infant screaming right behind me. Little kids appear to be sensitive to non-action much more than adults. I am in the process of raising two kids and definitely understand such behavior. To my utter surprise, the flight had not taken off and I softly asked a passenger sitting beside on the situation update. She said that nothing had changed and we were still waiting for a clearance. One hour had passed since we boarded the flight (it takes 1.20 minutes from Reagan to LaGuardia). We got an update that we would not be flying anytime soon and we would get an update in an hour's time. The crewmembers started giving out cookies and water to make sure nobody got sick. However now people started standing up to loosen up. In an hour we received another update that we would be flying shortly since we were scheduled first in line. The usual practice from what I understood was that each airline has a staff in every airport who coordinates and gets clearance from the destination airport. I started thinking of the design flaws in such practices but nothing in this world is perfect.

So far, it was 2 hours and 15 minutes in the plane and the flight had still not taken off. The captain announced that if this would continue for another 40 minutes we would have to head back to the gate and deplane because FTAA guidelines does not mandate planes to wait for more than 3 hours in the tarmac. Well at this time, I knew my connection had surely taken off when a crewmember suggested me to check this using the airline Wi-Fi. I did not have a data plan on my phone for my international travel so I made full use of this service. I was happy to discover that my connection was also affected and my chances of making to it was still possible. We finally got ready for takeoff at 4.50 pm; 10 minutes from the FTAA guideline expiry time. We landed at LaGuardia and I sped to the ground staff with my connection flight number. She pointed me to the transportation that would take me to another gate. I did not bother asking her on the status of my flight, so that I could catch my breath. However, this was just the beginning of a nightmare.

After reaching the destination gate, I looked around for a help desk and not finding any specific counter, I headed to a gate which just finished boarding to a flight. An agent was looking up something in the computer and my "excuse me" was answered after a minute where she pointed me to another group of people standing beside her. She said "I am not an agent; you need to talk to these guys". Surely, I did not see any empathy for a worried passenger. This was further aggravated in my conversation with the so-called agents. They spoke to me with a straight face that my flight was cancelled and I was booked on a flight for the next morning. According to the US department of transportation (DOT), a passenger is entitled a compensation for such situations amounting to double the ticket fare (up to $800). I was not aware of such a regulation. I requested him to re-route me through Toronto (I was travelling to Montreal). He obliged me by putting me on a flight to Toronto later in the evening. However, I would have to drive to Montreal because the airline company A did not have a flight from Toronto to Montreal. Reluctantly, I took the reservation and walked out of the terminal. I had 3 hours before getting to the next flight. While, I was walking out my phone rang informing me that the Toronto flight was late by 45 minutes (earlier scheduled time was 9pm).

I walked into the airline customer service at the entrance of the airport. The lady there had more understanding than the agent handling my case earlier. She understood my situation and worked hard to get me to a flight with airline company B from Toronto to Ottawa. Now my driving time reduced considerably. I thanked her several times for this help. While walking around the entrance area, I saw the counter for airline company B and they had a direct flight for Montreal scheduled around 9.30 pm. With a slight hope of improving my situation, I went there to request them for a seat. The agent bluntly told me that "Sorry, you will have to buy the ticket we cannot change booking done by other airlines". Thanking her for her kind words and immense help, I headed to board the flight to Toronto.

The flight to Toronto was further delayed to 10.15pm and I still had 50 minutes for my connection from Toronto to Ottawa. I embarked to this flight with a lot of hope, I wanted to reach home and be fresh for my class that I was teaching at noon the next day. This flight took 30 minutes to take off after being pushed back, my chances of getting to the next flight further faded. I was too anxious to even close my eyes all this time en route to Toronto. When we got close to Toronto, the captain announced that the weather was bad and we would do a hover around the Toronto airport until the visibility got better. This continued for 45 minutes and then we were informed that this flight would be diverted to Buffalo, USA. We landed in Buffalo at around 12.15am. The flight was in the tarmac waiting for ground staff to allocate a gate to us. After 1 hour we had an emergency situation in the tarmac where a lady started feeling unwell and had to be treated by paramedics while waiting in the tarmac. It did not change anything, we continued to wait, several announcements happened. Firstly, the captain's tone had hope, which slowly changed into anger. There airline company A had no ground staff in the airport, none were reachable either. They managed to get the airport manager who came in with his staff. The flight was parked far from the terminal after 2 and half hours. We got down from the stairs, just to be received in trucks that could transport 5 people at a time. Buffalo airport did not have buses. On heading to the terminal building, there was a long queue. The airport manager was giving out hotel coupons and informed us that the same plane would take us to Toronto at 11am next morning. While waiting to be transported to the hotel, I was looking at options to get to Montreal as soon as possible. The transportation to the hotel did not arrive and everyone was getting frustrated.

It was 3.30am in the morning when I decided to arrange my own transportation to Toronto airport. I called out for people who would be interested and there were nearly 10 people who responded in positive. We walked to the next street, which was specifically for taxis and called for taxis. In 15 minutes I was in a taxi with 3 other like-minded people heading out to the Pearson airport in Toronto. We reached the airport by 5.50am. Hope was only my driving force.

The airline company A had not counters in this terminal and so I walked out to the airline company B (I was booked Toronto - Montreal with them by airline company A). The lady was busy but she saw in me a worried and tired passenger. She asked me to come with her on the other side that did not have many people. After having listened to my ordeal, I could see a lot of compassion in her approach. Indeed, she was very different from the person from the same company in LaGuardia who wanted to sell a ticket to me.

I did not disturb her while she kept pressing keys in the computer, until she looked up and told me that she was reclaiming my ticket from airline company A and booking me to Montreal directly for the 7am flight. It was 6am then and even after not sleeping all night, this seemed to cheer me up and brought in energy to my tired face. I thanked her immensely and head out to the gate. I reached Montreal at 8.15am, 15 hours later than my planned arrival. If I had anticipated so much trouble, I would have rented a car in DC and would have driven to Montreal in 11 hours with 2 well-defined breaks.

Questions:

a) What are the different organizational factors (such as leadership, readiness, employee motivation etc..) that seems to have failed in this case study (in your presentation, identify the factor and justify why you think it failed)

b) For any one of the factors identified, suggest a solution that could fix the problem- Be as creative but please be realistic, remember we cannot have organizations with infinite budgets on an initiative.